Evolution
by Speechwriter
Summary: I am everything the world has made me, a tragedy and a thirst for vengeance. No OC.


**This idea came to me when I was sitting in Psychology. There are twelve roman numerals to divide up the story, and I hope you enjoy at least one of them enough to review. XD**

**This is an autobiographical present-tense. I've done my best to stick with canon, although I know Rowling has stated in outside interviews a specific piece of information that goes directly against the basis of this story. Besides that one little flaw... I find the character fascinating, so I decided to give him a back-story (hopefully) worthy of his canon epicness.**

**You should probs recognize who the main character is early on. It isn't an OC, though his love interest is. If you could drop me a review saying when exactly you realized who he is, that'd be fantastic. I'm curious.**

**All my love,**

**Speechwriter.**

* * *

I. _A Curse_

It is never about _who_ I am. It is always about _what_ I am, and that is and always will be the most unbearable part of this entire ordeal.

I am born skinny and premature, mewling pathetically, a tuft of copper hair plastered to my head. I am the cursed child – giving birth to me kills my mother, my poor mother, and the date is April 4th, 1960. Her death, my birth. A completely unfair trade.

I am born with the noise of artillery around me – the coup of the pro-Western government has finally begun, and there is shooting going on even while hospital personnel desperately try to save my mother. It doesn't work, in the end. Nothing works.

The American CIA has trained the Laotian Royal Army to fight, but that doesn't stop the indigenous guerrillas fighting them with vigor. It doesn't stop this hospital getting caught in the crossfire, doesn't stop the medics screaming and stumbling out of the building as the windows shatter, leaving me and two other infants in abandoned bassinets.

It is later. My two companions are cold and still and I am about to follow. A man walks into the room, and my eyes fix on him greedily. He walks over, gun bristling on his side, distaste plain on his face.

We make eye contact for the first time. I stretch out a hand, curling tiny fingers, and something softens in his face. He is young. He is worn-down, smeared, tan, with warmth in his black eyes, and suddenly I am airborne, wrapped in a tattered white blanket, wrapped in strong forearms.

He glances over both shoulders and turns quickly on one heel. The sharp _crack_ elicited by this motion does not rise above the thundering of guns outside.

I am flying through space and darkness and spiraling, still in the man's arms – and then we emerge, his feet landing on concrete with a _splatter_ of old rainwater puddles. I am put down on a doorstep in this buzzing dripping urban night, abandoned twice in the first three hours of my life, and the man turns on his foot once more.

I blink my eyelids over my wide eyes, staring at where he was seconds ago, for with the second _crack_, he is gone. Completely gone.

* * *

II. _A Burden_

I do not know where I am from. I was a doorstep baby, or so Ms. Andrea tells me, as she trims around my ears carefully. It is a strange mix of appearance that I have – a light brown head of hair, tanned skin, and close features, with extraordinarily clear, sharp eyes that are practically caramel in color. There is no apparent hint at my race save for a slight slant at my eyes. I am a scrawny child at seven.

I frown, scrunching my face up most unbecomingly. I have told Ms. Andrea I don't like getting my hair cut because I am terribly afraid of scissors, but she insists.

A sudden _snip_, and hot pain floods through my ear. My howl of anguish startles her tremendously, but not nearly as much as the way the silver scissors suddenly glow red with heat. She shrieks and disengages herself from the scissors.

Maybe she thinks she imagined it. She stares at the scissors, which lie innocently on the ground. Then she tells me that my hair looks fine the way it is, so never mind, could I go and set the table and get John to help me, please.

This specific incident never repeats itself, but one night, when I am ten, I am told off for saying a dirty word and given a harsh slap on the wrist, then another, and another. I close my eyes and hope desperately that it will stop, and the lightbulb above us quivers and bursts with a harsh _ting_, dousing the room in dimness.

Ms. Andrea curses far worse than I ever have, then, because a shard of glass has flown downwards and embedded itself in the tip of her thumb. I am sent to my room, thinking that it was so convenient, thinking the world is on my side.

It is three months later when the letter arrives in the post. It is April fourth, and it is very odd that the letter has my room number on it, because Ms. Andrea hardly remembers it herself. Nonetheless, I open this letter, my grubby fingernails digging at the heavy paper.

It is written in green. I didn't even know that they made green ink. I read it and something lights up in my stomach.

* * *

III. _A Novice_

The street is fairly crowded. Ms. Andrea agreed to take me to this place for an hour – though I think if I just stopped and stared for an hour at a single shop window, I still could not see all I wanted to see there.

We are walking by a place that has a broom in the window. I wonder why it is displayed horizontally, wonder why it is so old-fashioned-looking, but my eyes quickly flicker to another storefront, one full of books with pictures on the covers – pictures that _move_.

The letter said to go to the white marble bank up ahead, the one with _Gringotts_ carved above its door. Apparently my new school has a fund for children like me, children who have never had the type of currency we need to buy our school things.

The three months of interim between Diagon Alley and the train seem like years. Eventually, though, with some help from a passing boy with long blond hair, I find myself behind what seems to be a brick wall and standing in front of a tremendously loud red train. I look around in a daze, my eyes hunting for any friendly face, but none appears. There are cries all around as friends hail each other, but I board the train alone, find a compartment alone, and wait alone for someone to arrive and tell me exactly how I got here.

It is half an hour later, and the compartment door opens shakily. The boy who peers around the door is pudgy and mousy, and he points to the seat opposite me questioningly. I shrug.

He sits down. "Peter Pettigrew," he says. His voice is reedy, unconfident, not unpleasant.

"Charles Shaw," I reply. He nods, a strange look of relief coming across his face, as if he had expected me to be someone else.

"First year?" he asks. I nod. "What house do you want to be in?" he says, and because I have heard nothing of this before now, he explains it to me.

"I don't know," I finally decide. "Wherever that Hat decides to put me, I suppose." A strange idea, really, a hat – or, rather, a Hat – deciding where to place me for the next seven years of my life.

Peter is a very nervous person, I think to myself. He won't stop fidgeting, won't stop looking out the window, yet he sustains conversation the entirety of the train ride. I wonder if we will become friends. I wonder if we are already friends.

* * *

IV._ A Ravenclaw_

The Hat thinks for a while. Its voice is unsettling to me. I feel like no one else's voice should be in my head, but to my relief, the voice subsides once it decides on:

"RAVENCLAW!"

The table cheers. I don't understand why they're cheering, but I go and sit down, and I give a quiet smile to the boy on my left, who claps me on the back even though I've never seen him before in my life. I feel a bit comforted, but also disappointed that Peter got Sorted into Gryffindor. The one person I'd managed to speak to... gone.

I keep to myself at the table, shooting furtive glances about. The people around me are quite reserved, too, although I can hear from here a few people over at the Gryffindor table, who are laughing so loudly I could swear they've been put under some sort of hex. My eyes dart over and fix on Peter's back. He's one of the laughers, which puzzles me. I wouldn't have thought him the type to fit in with that sort of crowd – two handsome black-haired boys who look like twin mischief-makers, and one with brown hair who looks confident and organized – and then Peter. He looks almost forced into the conversation, like he's trying to be more at ease than he actually is.

My puzzlement at Peter's social placement is disrupted by the voice on my right.

It is a voice like bells.

It is a voice like fire.

It is a voice like no voice I have ever heard before.

I turn. Where there was a turned back, there is suddenly a face, and I feel every bit of feeling I've ever felt bubbling up from my stomach. She is even skinnier than I am, with a lofty grace in the sweep of the contours of her pale face. Her eyes are a vicious shade of blue, made to cut, and her voice has asked me, "Hey, what's your name?"

I find myself answering in a daze. "Charles Shaw," I say.

"I'm Amelia," says the girl, flicking her black hair out of her face with flair. "Nice to meet you. You're from London?"

I nod soundlessly, my eyes straying from her face to the boy on her right and the girl across from her. They are speaking to each other now that Amelia is talking to me. She is talking to me.

"Yes," I say. "How about you?"

"I'm from London, too, but at first I wasn't going to go to Hogwarts," Amelia says. "My parents liked the Beauxbatons curriculum far better, but in the end this was just nearer, so they decided to ship me here. I'm glad – it's a far better school than Beauxbatons, don't you think?"

I'm left wordless for a moment, but I find my voice eventually. "I don't know what Beauxbatons is," I say in a small voice, my eyes flickering down to the food on my plate.

"Oh," Amelia says, "are you Muggle-born?"

I shake my head, but then I pause. "Well, maybe," I say. "I live at an orphanage, so I don't know who my parents are."

"Oh!" Her eyes get round. "Wow," she says, "what's that like?"

It takes a while to describe it to her, but she doesn't seem to mind. Then she tells me about what it is like to be rich, and I listen in fascination, because I know nothing of fountains and elves and wealth. I listen for a very long time.

Amelia says she loves talking nearly as much as books, and books nearly as much as magical creatures. I have never heard the words 'Kelpie', 'Grindylow', 'unicorn', 'Thestral' – they are as alien to me as her smile, yet as welcome, which is saying something, because her smile is the best thing my eyes have seen to date. Her teeth are uneven on the bottom. Her lips are smooth as butter and the dimples in her cheeks are twin-image perfect.

We talk long enough, I think, for me to fall in love.

* * *

V._ An Envy_

Amelia has grown over the summer, but Peter is essentially the same. We see each other on the platform, and, "Hey, Pete," I say, "want to sit with Amelia and me on the train?"

He wrinkles his nose and looks around. I know he's searching for his three friends, and it irritates me beyond imagining. "Actually, I think I'm sitting with Pad – with Sirius. And James. And Remus," Peter says, shuffling awkwardly.

"Come on," I say. "I haven't even spoken to you since the end of last year." I haven't written him over the summer, either; I've been too busy writing to Amelia. She has my whole 5th year mapped out for me, in essence. Amelia says that O.W.L.s are really important for your career; I haven't really looked into the actual requirements much. She tries to boss me into studying, a lot of the time, although it hardly ever works.

Peter shakes his head just a bit, and then his eyes light up. He spares me a quick wave before running off into the crowd, and a pang shoots through me as he reunites with his Gryffindor pals. Peter has stayed... close to the three of them, but it's strange. It's like they're his masters, and he doggedly trails after them, and they reward him. It makes me feel angry. And, weirdly, jealous. After all, Peter has four friends, while I only have one: him.

Amelia does not count as a friend. Amelia is my second soul. Amelia is the voice inside my head. We are inseparable – I never tire of listening, and she never tires of speaking.

She, too, though – she has friends, lots of them. People seem to think I am strange; they avoid me. I have wondered if it might have something to do with the way I look? My eyes are just a bit too close together, their color a bit too feverish; my mouth is a bit too high on my chin and my nose a smidge too small. But maybe that isn't it at all.

I watch Sirius Black sling his arm around Peter's shoulder, and Peter scowls and then breaks into a grin – not a grin he has never shared with me. My jaw stiffens. A sour taste floods my mouth, but just then Amelia sticks her head out of our compartment window, a glowing smile on her face, her black curls tangled in the wind's fingers. "In," she calls, and I smile in return.

"Okay," I say, and I board the train.

* * *

VI. _An Investigator_

I am going to pursue a career in Law Enforcement. Hopefully a job as a detective. After all, my Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L grades were stellar – so were Potions, Charms, Care of Magical Creatures, and Transfiguration. Everything practical.

Amelia insists that Divination is practical. I laugh at her for this.

But I cannot pretend, or lie to myself any longer. I am angry at Peter. Angry, because I am always second to those Gryffindors he worships. Angry, because he is keeping _something_ from me. He lied to me about _it_ once, but that didn't work, because I'm long accustomed to Peter's lies. He is a terrible liar. Then he hinted at what _it_ was, just once. Just enough of a hint to intrigue me. _I can't tell you, I'm not supposed to be doing it._ And I can tell _it_ is something big.

Amelia has told me to let _it_ go, but no – I can't help myself. I'm following Peter now, through the darker back passages of the castle, hiding under an illusion charm. The moon drips in through the window in puddles. Peter stops in the Entrance Hall, presses himself against the wall – and seems to disappear into shadow.

My eyes catch the tiny black creature as it races out of the door down the grounds.

I am numb. I go back upstairs, wondering how I haven't noticed him ever do this before now. I wonder how he has managed to do this already. And, most of all, I feel the deepest envy that he is an Animagus.

My throat tightens. What if I were to have an Animagus form, too? Would Peter feel like we were closer? Would Amelia like it? She loves magical creatures – but Animagi aren't really _magical_ creatures, are they?

My reasoning drips away into solid desire. I imagine, for a glorious heartbeat, what it would be like to be able to feel that power in my body.

And I am decided.

* * *

VII. _A Man_

The times are dark, but our wedding day is bright. I am happy as I have never been; she is radiant as she has always been.

We live in London now, not far from where I grew up. I have been working hard, very hard, on this Animagus thing, but although I have been in contact with Peter for these last couple years, I have told him nothing about my project. I want to surprise him – and I want to surprise Amelia, too. She works with magical creatures, just as she always wanted. We have three cats. I have become very fond of them. In fact, an inexplicable fondness for nearly everything has taken me, as if I am a glow in the darkness, a daring hopefulness that has been quashed in so many other places with the rise of You-Know-Who.

People tell me I should have been a Slytherin, given my powers of deduction. I scoff and say that Ravenclaws are the intelligent ones, but they chuckle and tell me that cunning is very different from a desire to learn. I am not an overtly important detective, not by any stretch of the means, but the work I have to do is very important. I am supposed to investigate murder scenes and see who in the Ministry might be tied to You-Know-Who.

I yawn, putting my arm around Amelia. Her eyes transfix mine as completely as the first time I saw them. It is a Tuesday night, and Boots, our black-and-white cat, snuggles into my side. Suddenly there is a scratch at the darkened window.

An owl. Peter's reply. "One moment," I say, and I open the letter.

"Is that from Peter?" Amelia asks. I nod.

He says everything is well. He says that James Potter and Lily Evans are so happy, now that they are married. I don't know why this would interest me, given that I have never spoken to James or Lily in my life. Sirius and Lupin remain single, as does Peter himself. He says for the eighth time that he is still so dreadfully sorry for not coming to my and Amelia's wedding, but he couldn't; James and Lily's was on the same day. Isn't that so very typical.

Amelia's family filled up the space all by themselves, though. Amelia is one of seven sisters; her father is one of six brothers; her mother has three sisters and two brothers. I have never seen so many related people in my life as on that wedding day. Each was as friendly as she, as honest and bossy and inquisitive as she.

I toss the letter onto my kitchen table, stand, stretch, and kiss Amelia on the forehead. She catches a length of my long hair in her fingers and tells me I need a haircut. I smile and disagree, then set to writing Peter a reply.

Amelia goes to bed. I finish the letter, attach it to the leg of Peter's owl, and open the window. It flutters out into the silent night.

There is a strange sort of strangled hoot a couple seconds later, but I look out the window and Peter's owl is already gone. I shut the window and go to bed.

* * *

VIII. _A Victim_

It is the next day that, after three years of trying, I manage to transform into an animal. In the mirror, I am regal. I am a tall person; I am a long cat. I have long hair as a person; I have thick hair as a cat. I am the ginger brown of my hair; my eyes are a stark orange. My face has morphed into a caricature of my own, squashed and centered. I sit on the bed and I groom myself, thinking that I am far too large to be just a cat. There is a wiliness in my expression that is not entirely feline.

It feels strange. There are parts of me that have changed – my emotions dulled, my instincts heightened, my eyesight sharper. And something in my head gives me the inclination that something very bad is about to happen.

I shake off the feeling and stand up, stretch out, my hair melting away from every pore of my body. It is time for me to register as an Animagus; I decide I will do it tomorrow. Now it is time to celebrate.

Amelia walks in the door, hanging up her coat, her wand sticking out of its pocket. Grinning like an idiot, I look over to her.

"What are you so happy about?" she laughs, and I stride to her and kiss her hard.

I will never regret kissing her at that second, because then the door bursts open again and two cloaked figures storm in.

A spell spits from one wand. The light goes out, and now the redness of sunset is the only glow around our house now, and Amelia is screaming. I am cursing, yelling, trying to stand in front of her, trying to protect her, my hand fumbling in my pocket for my wand. _Death Eaters – Death Eaters –_

One of their hands flicks a wand, and I am yanked backwards by some invisible hand into the wall. The other Death Eater grabs Amelia roughly around the waist, even as she tries to get to her wand, which is still, tantalizing, sticking out of her coat pocket.

Something strange is happening inside of me. I feel as if I may burst. My face is agonized and my eyes are staring into Amelia's, and I scramble to my feet, drawing my wand, but I am so utterly distracted by that look on her face – that knowing look – my wand flies away –

"Where is Peter Pettigrew?" says a voice behind the mask. It is a low voice.

"What?" I say, my head snapping around to look at him. "Peter?" My heart races. "Why?"

"Tell us where he is, and we'll go."

It isn't even a choice. It is a reflex. "He's staying at Godric's Hollow for the weekend," I say. My voice is shaky; my breaths aren't bringing any air to my spinning head. All I need is for him to let go of Amelia – I can't be sure she's safe until he lets go of her –

"Wonderful," says the other voice, a high, aristocratic, female voice. She draws her wand. It is jet black. Its tip presses lightly into Amelia's temple.

I can't form the word 'no'. All that bursts from my throat as the Death Eater starts to speak the words is a scream, a wail, a sob, for I know the green light is going to come before it does.

The green overcomes the red of sunset for a single heartbeat. In its aftermath, everything seems dark.

I am on my knees. The wand is pointing at me. "No," I finally manage to breathe, but I am sitting there and crying, my hands gripping my knees so tight my fingers must be yelling out to my unresponsive mind – yelling out in pain –

Both of the cloaked figures convulse suddenly, their hands gripping their arms. Their Dark Marks, of course – burning, calling –

The wand flickers away from me and before I can register anything, they are gone.

Everything is gone.

I scramble over and hold her body until it is cold.

* * *

IX. _A Follower_

It is a new life after I realize she is really gone. A new life after eighteen hours.

The first thought in this new life is _Peter._ Not _I betrayed Peter; I sent them after Peter_, but _Peter, you killed her._ If they had not wanted to find him, they would not have intercepted the owl – they would not have come in here – they would not have killed her.

I have never felt vengeance before. But I feel it now. Stronger than I have ever felt _anything_ in my _life._ Stronger than my love for her is my _hate_ for her absence.

I do not know what to do. I do not know what to say, so I stay at home, and I hope that no one will visit. What will I tell them if they knock? And why am I sitting in front of her body, still praying for her to wake up?

In the end, I manage to leave her. I Transfigure a couple things, after destroying our living room. I Transfigure the newspaper into a bloody arm – _my_ bloody arm. Peter must not know I am alive. Then when I find him – when I find retribution – he will have no chance of escape. No game of cat-and-mouse.

I Apparate, and I land in Godric's Hollow. _Find him._ The weekend is over; perhaps he extended his stay –

But it is strange. No matter how hard I try, I can't find James and Lily's house. Can't find where Peter might be...

The sun is setting, and I am hot with anger, with frustration. It hurts. Everything hurts – so much –

So I sit down on the ground, tuck away my wand, and I transform.

I am taken by the soothing numbness that washes over my mind. The emotional capability of whatever I am is not as strong as that of a human. I am glad for it – and cold, rational planning floods my mind in place of the dry fires of anguish.

I wander the streets of Godric's Hollow for several months, sleeping in the graveyard, eating whatever comes my way. Then, one night – Halloween night – the monotony of grief is shattered.

First, there is a very tall, cloaked man walking down a street. This would be no strange occurrence but for the fact that I blink and he is gone from view without so much as the _crack_ of Apparition.

I prowl over to the spot he vanished from, casting a wary eye about.

It isn't long before the world splits open in a tumult of chaos and noise, a massive rush rocking the very ground I stand on.

Suddenly, there is a house where there was no house. It has seemed to slide up from below, or perhaps in from the side – wherever it came from, it is wrecked. It is a twisted frame of a house, and the crowd builds, and builds, and I, the cat, am completely ignored amid the smoking disaster. Amid the gasps and the horrified murmurs. It is strangely quiet, an awkward shuffle of a tragedy, a wonderment at why the Dark Mark is not hovering above the house –

Now the _crack_ing begins; wizards and witches start Disapparating, and, quite soon, Apparating in from all directions. Then, down from the sky, descend a broomstick, a motorcycle, another broomstick. The world is lowering onto the scene. My eyes catch the man on the motorcycle and stick to him. It is Sirius Black, and something is dead on his face, but his eyes are feverish with mad anger. There is a firm hand on his shoulder – his friend Remus Lupin is there, now, Apparated in. Black is roaring something, but by then a Ministry official has brought out the dead body of Lily Potter, and the general screaming overrides what Black is saying, if it's even anything coherent.

A huge figure is parting the crowd like it is a waist-high river. Hagrid, the Gamekeeper, talking to Sirius. Trying to hear what they are saying, I am kicked several times, but I don't even bother to hiss at my assailants. After all, this is tragedy. There is no logic in a place like this.

But suddenly there is a small, dark shape scurrying down the grey pavement, and I stare for a second before crouching in the gutter to gain a better vantage point. I almost can't believe it, though why should I not? Of course Peter would be here. Rage alights in my chest, vicious animal rage, and I can see myself disemboweling that rat where it stands – but no – it is hurrying into the wreckage, vanishing into that dark skeleton.

Misery has turned to mayhem. People have started to break down, because James Potter has been brought out, now. I run after Peter.

I can see the hunched shape of a man, now, amid the dark timbers of the house. It has picked something up, glancing around.

Now is the time. I am ready to exact revenge – the time is perfect – but even as I straighten up and prepare to transform back into a human, Peter's silhouette draws its wand, performs some spell on whatever it holds, and shivers down into its other self. Then he is scampering back towards the street, and I am following at a safe distance.

A sudden hush falls over the crowd. Peter stops and faces back towards the quiet mass, and I hop up onto a fence and groom myself, my eyes flicking over at the scene. Hagrid holds something in his arms, Black standing in front of him, and murmurs rule the crowd now, a general tone of suspicion and then of wonder. The night blends the voices into a wavering sea of insecurity.

Then Hagrid is mounting Black's motorbike, flying away, and Lupin's arm is around Black as they forge their way to the edge of the crowd, practically unnoticed.

Peter is running again, I realize with a jolt of my heart. I cannot lose him.

I give chase. Then voices behind me, and I glance around once more. Lupin and Black grapple with each other, one desperately trying to run forwards, the other holding his companion back. Angry tones of Black's voice rise above the clamor behind me.

Peter. He is running wildly, like he has something to get away from – like _he_ is the one who did this to that house – like _he_ is the one who killed Lily and James Potter. Perhaps he did. After all, he killed Amelia. His mere existence killed the only person I loved.

I sprint after the rat faster than ever. Amelia's blue gaze flashes in my mind, galvanizing my legs into action.

* * *

X. _A Witness_

It is a hot pursuit, and Sirius seems to have shaken Lupin off in chase, because quite soon he overtakes me in the winding sprint. Godric's Hollow culminates in a crowded city square, and it is in one of the alleys off of that square where I finally hear Black's raw scream, a dark roar.

"PETER!"

By the time I peek around the alley corner, Peter is a man again. "Sirius," he says, "I – did you -"

"You are a low-down piece of _filth_!" Black yells. Heads poke out of windows and doors, and a small crowd gathers at the mouth of the alley, but he doesn't seem to notice them. I recognize my own familiar agony in his face, the agony of loss. Black screams, "I never should have trusted you! No one should have trusted you, you disgusting cowardly -"

He doesn't get much farther. Peter's face is lit only dimly by streetlights and by the half-moon, but it is unbelievably clear to my eyes. I press myself against the alley wall as Peter interrupts Black, his voice shrill, nervous, more so than usual. Hatred flows through me. My back arches involuntarily, and my throat quivers, longing to hiss, to spit, to bite. My claws flex uncomfortably onto the concrete.

"YOU BETRAYED THEM!" yells Peter wildly. "YOU BETRAYED LILY AND JAMES, SIRIUS! TO THE DARK LORD! HOW COULD YOU? HOW COULD -" but he is cut off by the shaking, rocketing explosion that guts the street into a wreck. And suddenly, among the rubble of the street, among the hissing steam, among the dead bodies littered around – in the screams –

Peter Pettigrew is a bundle of soaked robes.

My mind twists to wrap around the words. _You betrayed them._ Sirius Black, James' best friend? I would not question but for the fact that _I know Peter_ and that look on his face was a lie and a _scared_ one at that.

He is lying. He is still lying, lying to the world, feigning death. He is amid those robes, the robes that lie in the gutter just inches from an exposed pipe mouth, I know it – I know it –

A tiny movement of cloth. A rodent's figure writhes down into the sewers, and I let out an angry yowl.

He is gone. I cannot follow. And the look on Black's face as they drag him away – a hard, bitter angriness. It is coupled with disbelief, such disbelief that he starts laughing, even through crazed grief. Maybe that grief is only perhaps apparent to me because I am feeling it now.

* * *

XI._ A Liar_

The years pass by in a blur. I refuse to change back; it feels like a lie to pretend that I still feel human. I think turning back into me would hurt.

I have tried to hunt Peter down for nearly ten years now. I have forgotten the shade of blue that Amelia's eyes were. I have forgotten the look on Black's face as they took him away. I have forgotten what it was like to smile. But I have not forgotten the feeling of having someone, and the feeling of having her taken away.

With the knowledge of that feeling, I am set until my mission culminates, no matter what that entails.

I am suddenly swept up in two arms, a cooing voice in my ear. I look at the person with disgust – that pet shop owner. I have ended up in Diagon Alley, after all, and it looks as though I have a new home whether I like it or not. The steady supply of food, at least, will be welcome.

I need to formulate a plan. This place will be excellent for the interim.

* * *

XII. _A Vengeance_

She awakens some deep memory in me, stirring it. Her voice – that _voice_ – it is the _same._ Her features are completely different, but the air she has about her – what is she, second year? Maybe third year? She could be a member of Amelia's family, for the poise and pride with which she holds herself. And she could be Amelia herself, for the confidence and authority with which she speaks, although she looks nothing like Amelia. She has bushy brown hair instead of perfect ringlets of black. She has warm brown eyes rather than icy blue.

I am so utterly taken by this sudden, stimulated rush of recollection that her appearance elicits. So taken that I do not even think to scratch or bite the girl. The shopkeeper seems disappointed to see me go, if just a little.

When I see a very familiar figure on the shoulder of a red-haired boy, I stiffen in shock.

I am numbed to immobility. Surely it cannot be. Surely the world could not just have delivered him into my claws like this.

He, of course, does not recognize me. He has never seen me before in his life. He does not know that I know who he is, and that will not change. I will never let him see me in my human form again, will never give Peter Pettigrew the knowledge that once I wanted so badly to be him. I will never again show him who I really am. He does not deserve that much, and will never deserve that much.

Perhaps this _is_ who I really am. Perhaps I have ceased to be anything but fiery hissing animalistic uncivilized revenge. But perhaps something more to me survives. I hope so.

I was first curse, then victim, now a hopeless instrument of purpose. I have learned to enjoy animal comforts as an animal does, without thought, without logical approach. Somehow, though, the sight of Peter right there in front of me is a comfort. A reassuring weight buries itself inside me, and I feel a calm and a cool I have not felt in a very long time. As long as he does not know that his cover is blown, he will remain. As long as he stays ignorant, thinks I am a housecat by the name of Crookshanks, I can kill him any time I want to. I can avenge anyone he has hurt. Everyone he has hurt.

I swear to God I will.

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**And the rest is history. :D I hope you liked it! Please, please drop me a review – I would appreciate it so much!**

**All my love,**

**Speechwriter.**


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